Man Standing and Study of Head (Study for 'Commotion in the Cattle Ring'), c. 1935

James Bateman RA (1893 - 1959)

RA Collection: Art

A head and torso pencil study of a man wearing a coat leaning on a curved railing and holding a walking stick in his left hand. Above this is a study of the head of a man wearing a flat cap, with a grey wash over it and parts of the face and cap highlighted with white gouache. Both men have stern-looking faces; the top study, in particular, having a grimaced mouth.

This is a preparatory study for James Bateman's Commotion in the Cattle Ring (Tate N04834). The pencil study of the man leaning on the railing relates to the figure leaning on the railing in the middleground to the left of centre wearing a white coat and brown flatcap and holding a wooden walking stick in his left hand in the finished painting. The position of the hands - with the right hand resting on top of the left holding the walking stick - is very similar between the study and the painting. However, the man in the study is not wearing a hat and his features are also more defined than in the finished painting. The other study does not seem to relate to any of the figures in the finished painting in particular.

The artist's widow wrote to the Tate Gallery on 9 September 1959 about this painting: 'The original idea was just a sale-ring. But one day my husband saw a bull escape with its lead and the dealers scramble for safety.'

The work was painted in the cattle ring at Banbury, Oxfordshire (see Tate catalogue entry). The Cattle Market was held on Merton Street in Grimsbury at the eastern end of Banbury from 1925 until its closure in 1998. Midland Marts Ltd organised auction sales there, which is most likely what is depicted in Bateman's painting.

The study is one of 47 preparatory drawings for Commotion in the Cattle Ring that are in the Royal Academy's collection. These preparatory drawings as well as studies for Cattle Market (Tate N04958) and Pastoral (Tate N04471) were given to the Royal Academy by the artist's family in 1977.

James Bateman RA was a painter and wood engraver of pastoral and farmyard scenes. He was born in 1893 in Kendal, Cumbria. He studied sculpture at Leeds School of Art (1910-14) and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. Following serious injury in the First World War, Bateman turned from sculpture to painting and trained at the Slade School of Fine Art (1919-21). He taught at Cheltenham School of Art (1922-28) and Hammersmith School of Art and designed camouflage in the Second World War. He died in London in 1959.

Bateman first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1924. His paintings Pastoral (1928), Commotion in the Cattle Ring (1935) and Cattle Market (1937) were purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery. Bateman was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1935 and a Member in 1942.